My name is Pinkie Pie, and today is a very special day!

It's the day I will finally tell my friends.

Of course, I have a party planned.  It's just a small party just for my five bestest friends, but it will be so special!  Even though my secret is the dooziest doozy ever, I'm not worried because I know they love me for who I am.

I've lived in two very different worlds, and the first one was just awful.  My life used to be as cold and humorless as rocks on an old rock farm.  Nopony in the family I grew up in ever smiled.  There was little talking.  There was no singing.  Until that fateful evening after I saw Dashie's beautiful Sonic Rainboom whoosh by, I'd never even heard the sound of laughter!  (Not the friendly kind, anyway.)

When my younger siblings were little babies, they never laughed. Can you even imagine that?  That's the world I was born into, from the moment I first opened my cute little baby-blue eyes.  Everypony else in my family was just as drab on the inside as they were on the outside.  We did nothing but work.  Sure, from time to time there was a little love and happiness, but it was fleeting, and not very satisfying.

It's crazy how quickly things can change.  I made a whole family of rock farmers smile on that day—even Maud!  Love and joy just poured out of them, limitless and beautiful.  I had found my special talent: making ponies happy.  And making ponies happy made me happy too, filling my aching core with all the smiles and giggles I never realized I'd been missing.

Things got even better when I moved to Ponyville: this was a whole city of ponies I could make smile, and so many friends!  But there were some bad times too.  I remember the birthday when I jumped to conclusions about my friends leaving me.  I wanted to sit up in my room all alone and starve myself to death, and as much as I love to eat, I probably would have.  I didn't realize back then how much my friends cared for me.  They could never let me wither away like that, because they love me too much.

Now I look at myself, and I can't believe how far I've come.  The very idea that a sad little foal from such odd and humble beginnings could grow up to hold the Element of Laughter!  I now know the true meaning of friendship, sacrifice, and most of all: redemption.  My friends and I stood up to Nightmare Moon, to Discord, even to King Sombreroguy, and with each battle our friendship grew stronger.

For me, the hardest battle was when we fought Chrysalis.  I guess it's because I feel bad for the changelings, since I know what it's like to be without love and happiness.  But in the end, when the real Princess Cadance and Twilie's brother exploded with that echo of love so pure and strong everypony but me needed to close their eyes—all the invaders were blasted away for hundreds of miles, while my friends and I just stood there, right at the epicenter, and basked in it.  It was so powerful, yet it didn't harm us at all!  That's when I finally knew.  I belong here.

I don't know when I'll be able to tell my adopted family what really happened on the day everything changed.  That poor, poor little pink filly.  I was there when Dashie's Rainboom shook the plains, and I saw the rock fall.  I ran to her side, but there was nothing I could do.  I spent two hours burying her in the unyielding earth, and of course I had no way to tell her family.  I even cried, which was a totally new experience.  I was already losing my mind with hunger, so I figured, why not give this earth pony family one last night with their daughter, you know?  Maybe it would help pay back the world for my crimes, if only just a little.  I never got her hair quite right, but I did the best I could.  In the end, somehow it all worked out.

It's time now.  My friends will be arriving any minute, and I'm ready to tell them my story.

I am a changeling, because I was hatched that way.

But my name is Pinkie Pie, because that's who I choose to be.